A Vow that Never Came to be
by EmilyRose09
Summary: Lucas promised that he'd speak at her wedding, but they both knew it was so much more than that. How come it never came to be? Brucas. Oneshot.


Disclaimer: Never mine! Dialogue taken from the show belongs to rightful owners.

A/N: Okay. I suck. I have so many stories out and I just don't have the time to finish them yet. But this little one-shot came to me, and I just had to go with my gut. All other stories will be finished in time. Until then, enjoy this and please review! FYI, past is written in italics and present is regular. This was very heartbreaking to write. Poor, poor Brucas. This is my ending to them, I suppose. It's has a theme. It's all about weddings and vows and promises. The majority is rooted in the canon of the show. In my mind this all happened, but you can decide for yourself. It's real scenes mixed with my own twist and then a different ending. Please review!

* * *

_Brooke was vulnerable again, just as she always seemed to be whenever Lucas Scott came around. She felt a wide range of emotions course through her. Guilt. Butterflies. Bliss. Guilt again. "I read your speech," she quietly admitted after Lucas had noticed her tears. _

_He gave her a pointed look. "Brooke," he chastised. _

_"Don't leave your journal where I can find it either," she joked as she tossed his jacket back over to him. "It was beautiful." She took a deep breath, savoring the words she'd just read, imprinting them into memory. "'Remember tonight for it is the beginning of always,'" she quoted, feeling the romance of it all build inside her. _

_Sure, she loved all weddings, but this felt different. His words had made a connection that resonated within her. It was more powerful somehow, more relevant to her life. _

_Luke made a face as she spoke. "That's Dante." He was disappointed that the only lines she'd picked out in his speech had been the words of another, much more famous writer. "We read him last semester," he reminded her. _

_Brooke smiled that million dollar smile of hers, despite being embarrassed at her mistake. "And I need to pay more attention in English." She laughed it off, shrugging slightly. _

_Lucas joined in, laughing airily. "Yeah." He suddenly sobered up, turning to face her directly. "The rest is me." _

_He wasn't searching for praise. He wanted to know if she understood him now like he never thought she could. He wanted to know if she felt the same way he felt—the way he'd been feeling all year; that there was something between them. Lust that had blossomed to love. _

_Their eyes met, and for a fraction of a moment it was all intensity and fireworks. Brown to blue, igniting a flame. "That part about taking chances and believing in the possibility, even when life is giving you every reason not to believe." She took a deep breath. "Mhmm." That kind of love was intoxicating. _

_"That's what's so great about weddings. Two people come together." Lucas paused; it was his turn to take a deep, soulful breath as he stared into her eyes. "And even if it's just for one night, they make us believe again." _

_She half-sniffled, half-laughed at that. "Stop. I don't have any more tissues." She wiped under her eyes. _

_Lucas handed her his handkerchief like the gentleman he tried to be. "Here."_

_She took it gratefully, just as she'd taken his jacket for warmth. It was the only comfort she would let him offer her for now. "I just hope at my wedding someone says something that nice about me." _

_"I think you can count on that," Lucas said without hesitation, and though Brooke seemed to barely hear it, those words would become a promise. _

* * *

_Brooke sheepishly walked up to the microphone after Lucas had given his wedding speech. It had been over six months since that first wedding that Lucas had escorted her to. Such little time had passed, but in the blink of an eye she'd watched as their relationship had dwindled into only fights and words, more lies and more pain. _

_But they were fighting still. They were fighting for the past. They were fighting for the future. They were fighting for each other. And they were fighting for the hope that weddings brought them—a hope to believe again. _

_Brooke had locked up her heart so long ago that she couldn't bear to open it again yet, even for the boy who held the potential to save her from her own stubbornness. _

_She was about to give her own speech about Nathan and Haley. A love that saw just as much heartbreak and upset as her own relationship, but somehow had conquered it all, diminished any obstacles. _

_She would always want that too. That happy ending. _

_Her eyes still held a hint of tears that were desperate to spill over. "I'm not the most eloquent speaker, so I thought I would borrow a few words from Shakespeare." Lucas had once borrowed another's words for a speech. She saw the beauty in doing the same. "'Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.' When life gets hard, when things change, true love remains the same. I look at Nathan and Haley, and somehow I feel safer. I don't know if I can explain that, but they give me hope." She thought of Lucas right then. His smile. The real one that he seemed to reserve for only her. The one where his eyes lit up in amusement at something she'd said._

_"And I'm afraid to say it out loud because maybe if life finds out it'll try to beat it out of them, and that will be a shame, because we all can use a little hope sometimes, you know." She thought of his two embarrassing speeches to her. She needed a third. And a fourth. And a fifth. And one everyday because he'd promised to fight for her. She needed that hope again. She needed it like she needed to breathe. "That feeling that everything's going to be okay and that there's going to be someone there to help make sure of that." She thought of his promise to speak at her wedding. She knew it wasn't a mere speech he wished to give. It was vows. She pushed away the memory and any thought of the future, raising her champagne-filled glass to the air. "So, here's to Nathan and Haley, and here's to hope, and here's to a love that will not alter." _

_She knew what she had to do now for Peyton. Give up Lucas, once and for all. It was the only end to them. It was her selfless end. Her greatest act of love. _

* * *

_Brooke stood up at an alter six years later watching as the only boy she ever loved promised himself to her best friend. The boy she loved and the girl she loved were marrying each other. _

_She was happy for them, thrilled even. It had always been Lucas and Peyton. Right? _

_It had been them when Brooke and him had gotten matching tattoos. It had been them when Lucas had confessed his feelings to Brooke before she left for the summer before senior year. It had been them when Lucas had forgiven her for sleeping with Chris Keller. It had been them when Lucas had shown Brooke the half of his novel that was dedicated to her. It had been them when Lucas had helped Brooke take care of Angie. It had been them when Lucas turned to Brooke for advice on his movie. _

_It had been them. It had been them. It had been them. Lucas Scott and Peyton Sawyer. Brooke had to keep reminding herself, or else she was doomed to lose it right then and there during the ceremony. _

_She'd loved weddings once. True. But she wouldn't love this wedding. She didn't believe her own words anymore. She wasn't always the footnote in the Lucas and Peyton love story. And she hadn't even just had a page or a chapter. She had been the love interest once. She had been the star. Peyton had been her villain. _

_She watched hazily as her beautiful best friend walked down the aisle, looking ethereal and motherly. She carried the child of Lucas Scott within her. Brooke felt a twinge of jealousy as Peyton took her place beside Lucas. It had once been the place Brooke dreamt of. _

_Brooke hazily listened as Haley went on about how obsessed with Peyton Lucas was growing up. In a daze she watched as Skills freaked out over the whereabouts of her godson until finally she could listen to Lucas' vows: "Peyton, I've loved you since the first time I saw you. And this ring and these words are just simply a way to show the rest of the world what has been in my heart for as long as I've known you. I love you, Peyton Elizabeth Sawyer. I always have and I always will."_

_They were beautiful, well-executed words, but unexpectedly unmoving. Brooke had once read a speech where he'd moved her to tears using few but powerful words. She'd listened at Nathan and Haley's wedding as he'd revered their love so eloquently. But his words for his Bride on their day fell short in her eyes. They weren't powerful. They weren't intoxicating. They were plain. _

_She tuned out Peyton's following words. There was too much pain there, too much betrayal, too much distraction. She cried because of Lucas after. Not because she'd had the realization that she'd lost him forever, but because his promise was broken. He would never say the right vows to her. _

* * *

_Over two years later, Lucas stood behind the pews of Tree Hill's church, far enough to the side that no one could see him, watching as his pretty girl made her way to the alter where he'd once stood with Lindsey. Brooke was stunning in her white dress, custom-made by herself, Lucas knew, and he smiled at that thought. But more important that that, she looked incomparably happy. Happier that he'd seen her in a very long time. _

_She was getting her happy ending. Lucas knew deep down that was all she'd ever wanted. _

_He hadn't told her he was coming. He hadn't wanted to. He hadn't even told Peyton. He'd made up some excuse about work. He felt guilty knowing he should've been the one at home with Sawyer while Peyton came to this. She was Brooke's best friend, after all. It made more sense that she'd attend, but he had a promise to keep. _

_He wouldn't interrupt the wedding. He would wait until the reception to make peace with that vow he'd made at just seventeen. _

_Lucas listened as Julian made all the promises he now couldn't, but what he most wanted to hear was Brooke's vows. _

_She began in that beautiful, raspy voice that Lucas knew so well. "Julian, before I met you, my world revolved around one thing—me." Everyone laughed at that. His pretty girl was just as funny now as she'd always been. "And I liked it that way, on my own." Lucas thought of every time she'd pushed him away, rarely wanting help. "But then I met you and you saw through the facade, you saw me." I saw you first, Lucas wanted to say. "You've taught me to trust, how to let someone in, and what it truly means to fall in love." What did that make their love? Lucas and Brookes'. _

_"I can't possibly describe how much I love you, so I'll tell you why I love you. You see the world in a way that no one else does. And you appreciate everything, including me." Lucas thought of how he'd told her once that if he could go back, then he'd appreciate the things he took for granted, including her. "There's no one in the world like you. And if you say "yes" in a few minutes, I get to spend the rest of my life trying to see the world through your eyes, appreciating everything, including you—the most unique, wonderful and terribly handsome man I've ever met."_

_Lucas swallowed loudly, feeling a crushing burn deep in his gut. If he'd come to wish Brooke well and say nice things about her, then why was he so angry hearing that? _

* * *

_He hadn't said anything. There'd been no need. Haley and Jamie had said more than enough nice things about the dimpled brunette. She'd never even known he'd been there, and now she never would. _

* * *

Denial was a funny word, defined as an assertion that something once believed was resolutely false. Lucas and Brooke both fell into denial over their love. They both fell under the assumption that Lucas had never loved Brooke fully and that Lucas had never fully seen through her facade.

But every once and awhile, when they really thought over their time together, they remembered it for what it truly was: a great love. And they cherished it—the attempt they'd made, the fight they'd given, the ultimate sacrifice that ended it.

_How many moments in life can you point to and say that's when it all changed? _

_You just had one. _

_I give a rat's ass about you, too. _

_People that are meant to be together always find their way in the end. _

_There's somebody else and she's a part of my history that came before you. _

_I've been lying to myself about the way that I feel about her._

_Anything for you. _

_I want to be with you, Brooke. _

_I'm the guy for you, Brooke Davis. _

_She's the one. _

_Lucas is the one for me. _

_There are eighty-two letter in here, and they're all addressed to you. _

_The difference is I love you, Brooke. _

_There is this girl, you might know her, her name is Brooke Davis, and I am completely in love with her._

_You have to understand that my heart is with you. _

_Brooke Davis is going to change the world someday, and I'm not even sure she knows it yet. _

_It won't matter where we are as long as we're together. _

_Lucas Scott it going to change the world someday, and I'm not even sure he knows it yet. _

_Lucas Scott was the one boy I might have lost it for. _

_You save people, Brooke Davis. _

_We've been through a lot, me and you. _

_Who's to say it's not going to be this epic, kickass love story?_

_You don't have to compromise. Not if you don't want to. _

_Do whatever it takes. Just make sure they tell the story the way you remember it. _

Sometimes the beauty was in the attempt, but still, they had those days when they'd think back over their promises and want to make those vows again. Not simply say nice things, but the vows they'd have given had they married.

He would had said: "I love you, Brooke Davis. I could never say it enough, but a real love doesn't need those words for them to exist. They're felt and known and realized every day in the simple moments when I get to kiss you, and hold you, and hear you laugh, and see that perfect smile. But I know your heart, and I know that you need to hear the why sometimes. I'm overwhelmed by your strength, your inability to refuse others, your constant selflessness. I love you for your goodness, your unwillingness to compromise. I love how infuriating you can be, and how childish yet empowered you can act. I love how long it took me to earn your heart, but once I had you gave it to me completely, as undeserving as I am. I was lost growing up. I had false dreams and hopes until you came into my life and became the reality. You are my reality, Brooke Davis, and my future. And I get to spend forever in your company proving that I love you, always showing you, always fighting for you until you know without a shadow of a doubt that my heart is with you alone. I love you, pretty girl. And let my ring to you today always be a reminder of that."

She would have said: "Lucas, when I met you I was this other unattractive version of myself. I was popular and talented, and yet, I was devastatingly empty. I didn't know what it felt liked to be loved, truly loved until I met you, and you awakened this side of myself that I always hoped for, but never knew I could have. You showed me what kind of person I was, even when I still wasn't sure myself. And despite any mistakes we've made or heartbreak we've lived through, all the bad times were worth it because it brought us to here. And if I get to marry your brooding ass today I know I'll be the happiest girl in the world. The world I plan to face with you by my side every step of the way. I love you, Lucas Scott. Thank you for never giving up on me, husband."

It was just a dream. No. It was something more. A promise. A vow for someday. Hope was all they had now.


End file.
